


Scrap Metal

by FlatlinesU



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, More characters to be added as they appear - Freeform, Portal Stories: Mel, Post-Portal 2, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9623408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlatlinesU/pseuds/FlatlinesU
Summary: Virgil always tried to be professional. Keeping his head down and following Her orders has proved to be the best way to avoid trouble. But with the unexpected guest residing in his repair wing, that stopped being a possibility.





	1. Reunion

Aperture had not been this full of life in years.

Well, perhaps 'life' was not quite the right word to describe exactly what was going on in the massive facility. The halls were bustling with activity as cores and androids alike scramble to get everything back in working order. There was much to catch up on, now that She was back in her rightful spot. So much to do and test now that any possible disrupters of progress purged from the bowels of the enrichment centre.

Amongst the murmur of overexcited cores, one was less than keen of the facility's current state.

"For the _last time_ , you have to wait your turn!" A heavily-accented voice scolded. A golden optic narrowed in both irritation and concentration. Between manipulating the claw mechanism to replace part of the cracked hull of his current charge and dealing with the obnoxious testing associate core, Virgil was reaching the end of his wits.

"Aw, come on!" whined Nigel, positioning his handlebars in such a way that oddly mimicked a puppy dog's pout, "My chambers are in _pieces_ , Virg. It's like that I.D core purposely targeted it or something!"

"Unlikely," Virgil deadpanned as he worked on reactivating the core's pain simulation protocols and reattaching him to the management rail. "All done. Try not to get into any more trouble, Glitchy."

The maintenance core didn't see his regular off like usual. Instead, he swivelled around to finally face Nigel, irritation still fresh in his robotic features. Virgil was lucky that it was technically impossible for him to get tired while attached to his rail or else he wouldn't even be running at all. Being the most seasoned and skilled at his function was both a blessing and a curse; the damage caused by the tenacious test subject and the rogue core was nothing to sneeze at. He had been put in charge of repairing the damage that GLaDOS couldn't reach Herself and even with Her putting a majority of the facility back together, his workload was still massive.

"Sorry," At least Nigel had the decency to look sheepish, though that didn't last long as he started his spiel. "So as I was saying, my test chambers are kind of all over the place right now. The boss lady said that She'll be fixing up most of it eventually, but it's not prioritized 'cause we don't have any subjects to test right now and the paint gun's still in the middle of getting upgraded and—"

" _Nigel._ "

"What? Oh, right," After a completely unnecessary throat clear sound from the orange core, he continued, "I can't wait that long. Can you _please_ at least fix the first chamber? I'll make it up to you, I promise."

There was really nothing that Nigel could do for him. Even if he did, Virgil doubted that he would even keep his word. Nigel had a streak of dishonesty, or at least he did when it came to the test subjects. A lot of the cores that had testing tracks, Virgil included, often had the tendency to sugar-coat the truth. But Nigel took it to a whole new level. In a way, he acted a lot like a mini-GLaDOS, promising some sort of reward at the end of the test, only to discard the subjects in a fiery pit. Rinse and repeat. Maybe that was why Nigel was among Her favourites.

"What use would you have for a fixed test chamber? Like you said, you don't have any subjects to test."

"If you see what state it's in right now, you'd understand why. Virgil, please. Just _looking at it_ is bumming me out!" When he was met with silence, the test core started to sound a little desperate, "I really will make it up to you, I promise!"

Still, Virgil kept staring blankly as Nigel did the same with a more hopeful stare of his own. Seeing that he's not backing down, Virgil sighed and redirected his rail over to the storage area of his shop.

"Alright, _fine_ , I'll do it," He conceded, typing in the access code, "Give me a minute while I get ready."

Nigel's triumphant yell became muffled as the door closed behind him.

 

* * *

 

Among the boxes of spare parts and discarded projects, an android stood attached to a charging station, eyes closed and still as a corpse. Standing at a bit over five and a half feet, it was one of the shorter models of the Aperture Science Humanoid Emulation Systems. Which suited Virgil just fine. Less machinery to take care of in the end. It looked decidedly human-like, with curly auburn hair kept away from its face down to the slight scruff of facial hair. The only things that took away from the illusion were the occasional patches of exposed endoskeleton where the silicon flesh was ripped on its hands which was a telltale sign of the harrowing work that its owner does on a daily basis.

As he plugged himself into the transfer hub, Virgil made a mental note to get that patched up. Three minutes later, the subtle hum of machinery signalled the android's activation.

It was odd being in his Humanoid Emulation System again, he thought as clenched his fist a couple of times and rolled the stiffness from his shoulders. Although, the increased mobility was something that he could greatly appreciate from being in it. It was easier to do fine tuning and travelling through those places that management rails couldn't access, along with the places that the management rails do access. A bit harder to maintain, sure. But infinitely more useful than wheeling around in his core form.

He pulled the charger from the port at the back of his neck and ran his usual diagnostics. _Core corruption at 6%... Structural integrity at 94%..._ The slight buzz of erratic feedback from his right optic prompted him to turn to the reflective piece of discarded metal on the shelf beside him.

"Ugh, again?!" He exclaimed, scowling at the damaged optic. While it still mostly worked for retrieving visual data, the lack of golden light coming from it made everything asymmetrical. He made another note to fix it later, but if it kept breaking like that he didn't know if he wanted to bother with replacing it again.

He looked to the empty floral patterned core attached to the transfer hub and felt a shiver go through him. Like the robotic equivalent of seeing his own corpse, so to say. There was a pressurized hiss as he pulled himself from the port. Everything seemed to be in check, now he had a testing track to fix.

 

* * *

 

Virgil grunted with effort as he lifted another fallen panel and threw the offending slab into the corrosive goo below. It barely hit the surface before he flung yet another one over the edge. The glass floor had been completely shattered long before he arrived at the scene and while it added to his mile-long list of things that need to be fixed, it definitely made disposing of the unneeded rubble much easier.

He turned to walk to the other side of the platform when his boots hit a patch of something slick and bright orange. For a split second, Virgil thought it might have been Citranium that Nigel had spilt. But then he was abruptly propelled several feet forward and the next thoughts that crossed his mind were 'propulsion gel' followed by _'AAAAGGHH I'M GONNA DIE, I'M GONNA DIE—'_

His feet skittered off the edge and he nearly missed grabbing a support beam, stopping his premature demise via corrosion. With shaking, unsteady legs, he scrabbled back onto solid ground, loudly cursing whoever gave an AI the ability to feel panic.

"Ohh, crap— _Nigel, couldn't you have cleaned up a little?!_ "

The testing core in question had jerked out of stand-by mode at his yelling. His optic rolled exaggeratedly in its hull, looking as exasperated as Virgil felt.

"Give me a break, the washing servos are down right now." Nigel huffed, sagging visibly from his perch on the management rail. " _Everything's_ down right now..."

A hiss of air escaped Virgil in the mechanical equivalent of a sigh. He really shouldn't have been so hard on the kid; it wasn't like he was even equipped to manipulate any of the machinery what wasn't involved in testing or post-testing clean-up. The testing track was quite literally all he had, and now it was in shambles. Before he could think about what he was doing, he stood up and patted Nigel's outer shell. Though with the odd angle, it was more of an awkward but gentle slap on the side. The core jerked, more surprised than anything.

"Wha— Hey, what was _that_ for?" He looked startled, the orange light of his optic shrinking slightly.

"Don't worry about it." He brought his hand back and went on to lift another slab away. "Why don't you go see what other things need to be fixed, yeah? I don't want you getting hit with debris and falling into the goo."

"Er, right. I'll... I'll leave you to it." And with that, Nigel rolled away to another corner of the testing track, still looking dumbfounded.

Virgil only watched for a moment before he went back to the task at hand. Another piece of debris fell into the goo. Then another. Then another. Soon enough, the area was free of rubble and he could finally call in his repair nanobots to start fixing up the place.

He hoisted himself up and plugged his back port into the management rail to reach the next area. Thankfully, the first chamber wasn't too large. Otherwise, it would have taken too much time that he didn't have to fix things up. Reaching the last platform near the exit, Virgil called on another batch of nanobots to work on the broken emancipation grid while he did more of the heavy lifting.

As he got back into the monotony of his task, he let his thoughts wander for a bit. Everything was back to normal. Or at least, what was considered normal for Aperture. As much of a terrifying ruler GLaDOS was, it seemed like it was impossible for anything to be done when She didn't have Her influence running through the facility. The first time She was taken down by the infamous tenacious test subject, everything fell into such disrepair that the once glorious fortress of science was reduced to a decaying shell of its former self in less than a decade.

Virgil and the other cores were activated as a fail safe and were put in charge of maintaining the facility with Her gone. It had gone well at first, but even sheer numbers couldn't keep up the perfect efficiency that GLaDOS had. Some of the cores ended up malfunctioning or powering down from system overload, while others such as himself simply fell victim to the disrepair. Quite literally.

It was by pure luck that he managed to find _her_ within the lower levels of Old Aperture. The one that had saved his sorry hide from going critical on top of the pile of debris and drowning in toxic goo. The Olympian that took down AEGIS and unintentionally triggered the chain of events that led to where they were now. With GLaDOS in power and the facility free of the imperfect influence of humankind. He was only glad that Mel managed to escape before She was reactivated. Who knew what would happen if She managed to get Her claws on another capable test subject.

That was almost a year and a half ago.

He had to admit, the short time that they spent together was... pleasant. Hectic, sure. Full of door-related frustrations and mortal peril, most definitely. But the company that Mel provided made it all worth it no matter how brief it all was. Though Virgil would never admit it to anyone, it wouldn't be completely inaccurate to say he craved companionship.

"Huh?"

Virgil was pulled from his memory banks when he felt his hand brush against something smooth and metallic under the slab of rubble. It didn't feel like anything that would have been part of the test chamber. If anything, it almost felt like...

He was quick to throw the panel aside and take the smaller bits of rock away from the object. As soon as everything was cleared aside, the maintenance droid lifted a personality sphere from the pile. It was in surprisingly good shape, considering the fact that he had just fished it out of from underneath a pile of stone and metal. What might have once been a sleek white finish was dented and scratched up and the bottom handlebar was missing. Something about the core seemed familiar, but with its optic plates closed from deactivation he had no way of determining who it was.

"Poor thing must've gotten crushed when the facility fell apart..." He said to no one in particular, cradling the core in his lap as he sat himself down on the floor. His fingers idly brushed the layer of dust over its chassis, revealing more of its previous glory.

The action sent a pang of sadness through him as he remembered the other times he found cores like that one while fixing up parts of the facility. Most of them were destroyed beyond repair, and the few that he did manage to reactivate had programming so corrupted that they were barely coherent. Needless to say, they were disposed of quickly.

Out of curiosity, he squinted slightly and attempted to connect with the core. He sensed some activity in the black box part of its mechanism, typical for the cores that he had been able to reactivate. If this was anything like the previous ones, trying to reactivate it would just be a waste of resources and processing power.

With another hissed sigh, Virgil placed the core on the floor beside him and stood up to throw the rest of the rubble over the edge. The nanobots were in the process of rebuilding the glass floor on the lower levels, so he was careful to aim towards the gaps as to not destroy any of their work. No, it wasn't worth it. The core would just end up in the incinerator along with every single one of the ones he'd failed to save.

But...

He glanced back towards the sphere of metal on the ground and gnawed on his bottom lip. The time he spent in the bowels of Old Aperture reared up from his memory banks. It had been so terrifying, lying nearly broken on the floor all alone. His motherboard was nearly going critical with the cold seeping into his shell with no one to save him.

"Dammit." Consequences be damned, Virgil threw the last piece of rubble aside and grabbed the core, hugging it to his chest. He got like this every time he found a broken core. Driven by the determination to _fix_. Even though he had been unsuccessful every time, something told him that this time might—no, _will_ be different. Virgil was going to save this one. Virgil was going to be what Mel was to him to someone else.

 

* * *

 

A pressurized hiss escaped the management rail as he hurried to detach himself from it. The travel back to the repair wing felt longer than usual with the core cradled in his arms and once it was secured on the stand, it felt even longer to transfer his AI back into his core body. No matter how necessary it was to do so, everything felt completely unnecessary when Virgil had an urgent enough task.

"Come on, _come on_..." He murmured to himself as his optic scanned the parts hovering in front of him. Another set of claws worked on reshaping and welding together the damaged chassis while he focused on the damage inside. Shattered cooling system, gyroscope bent out of shape, frayed wires...

The damage was substantial, but it wasn't anything he couldn't fix. He could only hope that the personality housed within the sphere was kept intact.

Virgil was a construct of efficiency. Everything he did, he did quickly and with enough skill that no one could have guessed how quickly it was done. Even so, he made sure to slow down and focus on not messing anything up. Nerve-wracking as it was, it was a necessary evil to make sure he did everything perfectly.

When the last part was replaced and the inner mechanisms were put back to their rightful spots, Virgil rolled back and examined the pristine-looking personality core with a hint of pride. It was the most work he'd ever done fixing something and while he had confidence in his skill, that fact made the possibility of it not working even more apparent.

He let out a steeling sigh more out of habit than necessity and turned to the bright red button next to the stand. _Moment of truth._

Upon pressing the button, a low hum resonated from the connected generators at the side of the stand, steadily rising in pitch as it gathered energy. Virgil could feel static dancing over his hull and he only had time to back away a few feet before a powerful jolt of electricity shot into the core, sending it flying off the stand with a loud crack and a plume of smoke.

As soon as the initial panic passed, Virgil looked around frantically before spotting the core rolling around on the floor with its optic plates still shut tight.

He tried to not let his disappointment show, but a frustrated groan still escaped him. That was the most work he had done repairing a core and it doesn't even _work_?! What kind of maintenance core was he?!

"Nngh...I guess I should clean this mess up." Virgil murmured to himself, sagging in dismay. Slowly, he lowered the rail and brought a claw down to pick up the discarded core.

Light filled his vision as the core's optic plates abruptly snapped open, gradually dimming as it started to boot up. A series of beeps and whirs came from the core and Virgil could only watch with his own optic shrunken to a pinprick, which only persisted as he was met with the familiar sight of a glowing optic striped with the colours of the rainbow.

_Power-up complete._


	2. En Venn

Virgil was a construct who prided himself with being efficient. Possibly even more so than his newer, more updated counterparts. Even when he was faced with a formidable challenge like fixing a test chamber reduced to a million pieces or stopping the facility from being flooded by an arachnid security system, he could somehow push aside his fears and work towards a solution, as to be expected of him. In a way, that had put him in an advantage, as it was usually not in Her best interest to replace him with a more 'able' core. There was simply no one else that was better at his job, at least for now.

That being said, the fact that he was struck speechless and unmoving by something like seeing the short-term object of his infatuations on the floor of his repair wing...

In his defence, Virgil never expected to see the elusive Rainbow Core again. If anything, he was convinced he had  _drowned_ while AEGIS was flooding the lower parts of Aperture.

"This isn't the testing tracks." The rich timbre of his voice drew Virgil out of his shock-induced state. The core was wiggling his handlebars restlessly and gyrating in his hull in an attempt to right himself.

Shaking his chassis from side to side as if to clear his thoughts, the maintenance core brought a claw down and gently picked up his charge. He jerked so suddenly that Virgil nearly lost his grip and he readjusted his hold before lifting him up to his level. For a long moment, the two cores stared optic-to-optic with nothing but the hum of machinery to fill the silence. Most of the noise came from Virgil, who's cooling fans were working overdrive as the other core scrutinized him with narrowed eye-plates.

"Erm..." Virgil's synthesized cough was the first to break the palpable silence between them, "H-Hi?"

A flash of recognition flickered over the wary look the multicoloured core was giving him. Whatever he did recognize, it was enough to stop trying to escape the claw's hold.

"Hmm...yes, hello." He responded cautiously, optic swivelling around to survey his surroundings, "Pardon me, but would you happen to know where I am? More importantly, _does anyone else know where I am?_ "

There was an underlying sense of urgency in the last statement that didn't escape Virgil, and he was quick to dispel any worries that the other core might have.

"What? N-No, I'm the only one who knows you're here," He insisted, his voice processors skipping out of nervousness, "I'm, er, Virgil. The maintenance core. I found you in testing track Nigel-1 under some rubble."

He took the lack of response as a signal to elaborate, "You were badly damaged when I found you, so I took you to the repair wing and....repaired you."

"...I see. I'm in the repair wing, then," The other core seemed to ponder for a long moment. His optic flickered from side-to-side as if he was reading some unseen text in front of him, "Well, I have to thank you for your service, Virgil. It seems that you are as talented in your craft as you are lovely."

"L-Lovely. Right, thanks," Again, he let out a completely unnecessary coughing noise, "So, um..."

"Arthur." The core supplied, answering the unspoken question that Virgil had.

"R-Right." Nice to have a name attached to the legend, "Well, Arthur. Would you mind sticking around for a bit while I run some diagnostics? I need to check if everything is in working order before I let you go."

"Certainly, gorgeous." Arthur shifted his handlebars in a way that was oddly reminiscent of a human smile. Maybe it was his imagination, but he seemed a bit uneasy. Virgil couldn't imagine why; the repair wing was one of the few places in Aperture that isn't hooked up to the surveillance system. It was the safest place for a damaged core to be.

"Perfect! Now, er, just try to stay still. This won't last long."

Carefully, the maintenance core plugged Arthur's back port to the repair stand. He rolled forward and pulled up to the other core's code, his optic flickering back and forth as it scrolled through his vision. _Corruption level at 0%...Structural integrity at 100%..._ So far so good. As to be expected from a maintenance core of his skill, he added proudly to himself. He even got the corruption level all the way down!

He squinted further as he delved deeper and he was so focused on the task that he barely caught the startled noise from Arthur, nor did he notice his optic contract. No malware or viruses, or at least none he could see. Virgil was about to disconnect when a bit of heavily encrypted code caught his attention, appearing as an unreadable jumble of nonsense in his vision. That wasn't supposed to be like that. Especially if his corruption level was at 0%. The only encrypted code should have been in the suppressors, for obvious reasons. Virgil focused his signal on the lines of code and started to decrypt it.

The connection was severed abruptly and Virgil shouted in alarm, reeling back on his rail like he had been a few inches away from the mouth of an incinerator. His vision blacked out for a few moments and refocused just in time to see Arthur's expression shift to worry.

"Is everything alright?" His multicoloured optic rotated to the side, as if tilting a head he didn't have.

"Ah. Y-Yeah, just fine," Virgil replied automatically, still dazed. He shook in his chassis like a wet dog and refocused his gaze back to his charge, "There was a bit of code that was encrypted, but I got ejected before I could do anything about it."

Arthur relaxed visibly, "That's good...I'm glad you're alright."

"Thanks, but..." He trailed off, trying to recall which area was encrypted. It was something in the personality part of the code, but he couldn't remember exactly which component. Either way, the area was so large that he was surprised it wasn't affecting Arthur at all, "Are _you_ alright?"

"I'm just fine, darling." He seemed confused by the question, but it sounded genuine. That was good at least, but something wasn't adding up. Nothing he did should have caused a forced disconnection. He would have asked more questions if it didn't take such a toll on his processors. Maybe he could get a better look once he gets some rest.

"Alright, you're all set!" Virgil said with as much cheerfulness as he could muster. He called down a claw and reattached Arthur to the management rail, who let out a hum of satisfaction as it charged up his battery.

"Thank you, Virgil," He flexed his handlebars experimentally, "If that's all there is, then I should be going." Virgil shook his optic no. He watched for a few moments as Arthur began to roll away when something occurred to him.

"W- _Wait_ , actually--!" He needed to ask before he lost his nerve. When the other core turned back expectantly, he almost did. This was to make sure he could keep an eye on him, Virgil told himself, just in case something else happened to him, "Um...c-can I get your serial number?"

The lack of initial response was nerve-wracking and if Virgil needed to breathe, he would have been holding his breath in anticipation. Arthur's hull shook as he chuckled quietly, seemingly amused much to Virgil's ever-growing embarrassment. He continued his path towards the exit.

Virgil tried not to look disappointed, but he sagged visibly the moment Arthur kept moving. Well, so much for that. You shouldn't have gotten your hopes up in the first place, he told himself, almost scolding. With a quiet sigh, Virgil turned away to clean up the remnants of his recent repair job.

" _AC186cl-02_."

He froze in his tracks, startled by Arthur speaking up again. Virgil whirled around just in time to see the coy look shot in his direction before it disappeared along with the core into the maintenance areas. For a long moment, Virgil could only listen to the low humming of a familiar song fading as Arthur got further away, his lower optic plate and handlebar raised in lieu of a grin. As an afterthought, he ran the serial number through his database.

**'AC186cl-02 -- Affection Core.'**

_...Of course._

The telltale whir of another approaching core drew him out of his thoughts. Ah, his regular was back. He detached the scorched core from the management rail and onto the repair stand, humming as he gathered the needed tools.

"You seem to be in good spirits today," Glitchy commented, his sooty optic following the maintenance core as he flitted around. He was in such a sour mood when he dropped by earlier, "What happened?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing. Just...met an old friend. Yes, friend." That just brought up even more questions, but he didn't get a chance to ask any of them, "So, what bring you here this time?"

"Oh. Well, I got one of those 'Increase Your Core Size in Three Easy Steps' emails," Glitchy looked almost sheepish, "It didn't work. I think I might've gotten at least five viruses. I keep seeing ads pop up for single companion cubes in my area and--"

"Say no more." Virgil winced empathetically, connecting with the other core's operating system.

 

* * *

 

Elsewhere, a single blip in a torrent of information caught the attention of the overseer of Aperture. Her massive body turned as a large display screen was called forth, panels shifting and folding to accommodate. On it was a map of the facility: a cacophony of rooms and pathways intermingling like a massive ant's nest. The perfect image of the organized chaos, mirroring the purpose of its existence.

Numbers scrolled through the screen and two lines swept over like a comb through the map until they cross into a single point. Further zooming into the map, the source of the signal was found.

Well, that can't be right. Who would have a use for that kind of equipment? No one that hadn't already received a hearty dose of neurotoxin, that's who. In any case, She didn't have time to weed out a single, obsolete piece of equipment when there were more important things to do. After all, every minute She wasn't testing meant She wasn't advancing in the name of Science.

The sound of hysterical yelling and gunfire drew her focus away from the map and towards another screen. Displayed on it was a live video feed of a man in an orange jumpsuit huddled in the corner of a test chamber. Or rather, what used to be an orange jumpsuit. The blood streaming from the bullet holes in his thigh and side was starting to discolour the fabric. She turned on the announcement system.

" _The Enrichment Centre would like to remind you that needless idling in the test chambers will reflect badly in your overall testing file,_ " She intoned. Out of curiosity, GLaDOS switched cameras and zoomed out. And of course he had to stop a few feet away from the exit, too. How troublesome. " _The exit is to your right. Please attempt to finish the test._ "

The test subject stared at the camera for a long moment, disbelief clear on his pained features. But after some careful maneuvering, he managed to slowly crawl his way towards the open exit, leaving a shaky trail of blood on the pristine white floors.

The euphoria response was hardly satisfying.

" _Thank you for participating in this Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment activity._ " With a single command, the floor opened up from under the test subject and sent him falling into the chasm below. " _Goodbye_."

As She shut off the feed, GLaDOS couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Perhaps it was foolish to think that every test subject was going to be as driven and tenacious as _her_. But so far, every single human She revived from storage had been much too feeble for Her taste. What kind of test subject stopped just because of some bullet wounds or a sprained leg? Apparently most of them do, but _she_ never would. Some of them could barely even hold a portal gun in the right direction, much less navigate a test properly. Obviously, those ones weren't of any use to her, but they made excellent kindling for the incinerator.

No matter. There was no shortage of available candidates and nothing is going to stop Her from doing Science. Who knows? Maybe there would be a test subject better that _her_ hidden within these walls.


	3. Deep Underground

According to his internal clock, Arthur's serial number had been sitting in his data banks for almost an entire week now. It remained there gathering metaphorical dust as if it was taunting him for not contacting him yet. Virgil would deny it to his deactivation that he was too intimidated to make contact first. Arthur was probably a very busy core and didn't want to be bothered that soon afterwards. Virgil could understand how that feels. As a matter of fact, he had spent most of the week relentlessly repairing test chambers, so he didn't exactly have a lot of free time either.

He found it a bit odd that he needed to fix any of them in the first place; as far as he knew, the only capable test subjects in the facility were Atlas and P-Body. He had to admit that they were an efficient duo, but not efficient enough to run through that many chambers in the short amount of time She needed them repaired. Still, he was in no position to question Her orders. He would very much like to keep his hull intact and not melting off in the incinerator. Besides, it was probably physically painful for Her to have the facility in such a sorry state.

As tiring and harrowing his job was, it gave him a reason to hold off on contacting Arthur. But the thing with stalling is that it had to happen eventually. So when he was done with his share of repairs, he found himself looking for more things to do to pass the time.

After finishing off the repairs on the silicone coverings on his hands and replacing his damaged optic, Virgil found himself pacing around the halls of his repair wing. The quiet squeak of his long-fall springs punctuated his murmuring as he nearly wore a path into the concrete floor. A glance towards the status report in the corner of his vision told him that he had already gone through five percent of his internal battery trying to wear down his nervous energy. All he succeeded in doing is waste power, but at least it made him feel better.

"'Hello, Arthur'—no, no, that's too formal. I can go a bit more casual. We already know each other. Hm, 'Hey, Arthur'? Yeah, that could work," Virgil ran his fingers through the curly mess that was his hair, "Is using his full name too formal? I don't think we've talked enough for me to be using nicknames, but he did called me 'darling' once. Ugh, of course he did, he's an affection core!"

"Uh, Virgil?"

Virgil nearly jumped out of his boots and whirled around, coming face-to-face with Nigel hanging on the management rail. How long had he been there?!

"If you're done with... _that_ ," Nigel raised a handlebar at his shocked expression, but didn't question it any further, "I need something from you, if you're not too busy. You know where they keep the ASHES right? I need mine for a test."

"The what? Oh!" He smacked himself in the forehead, glasses going askew, "Erm, yeah, follow me."

"Thanks. Hey, are you doing okay?" Nigel sped up to accommodate Virgil's short but fast strides, "You seem kind of agitated. Like, more than usual."

"I'm not agitated!" Virgil said, clearly agitated. A cloud of steam escaped his mouth along with a sigh, feeling his internal machinery cool down in response, "I just have some cores lined up for repairs later. It's been a long day. Try to keep up, will you?"

The lower level robotics wing was predictably where they kept the Humanoid Emulation Systems behind a vaulted door. Only a few other cores were aware of its location; as sturdy as the androids were, it was easy to mess up the machinery if the person operating the retrieval system was unqualified. The maintenance droid punched in the access code and the loud thump signalled its unlocked status. Now came the hard part.

Virgil brushed a hand against the wheel for a moment before grasping it, grunting with effort as he strained to turn the rusted metal. Goddamn doors, never opening when they need to. He made a mental note to get some grease for next time.

The door creaked horrendously and the lights crackled as they lit up the area. The storage centre was enormous, seeing as there was at least one android for every core in the facility. Behind a wall of thick glass, what seemed like an endless supply of pods hung from the walls. So many that even with the enhanced vision which his android body provided, the end of the room was nowhere near in sight. How an underground research facility could produce _fog_ of all things was well beyond his comprehension.

Virgil crossed the much smaller office area and placed his hands on the terminal, squinting at the screen to connect his wi-fi nodes to the system. Nigel was rolling slower as he took in the sight of everything, optic shrunk to a pinpoint. It was the first time he had seen the holding area, so Virgil could understand why he was so overwhelmed by the sight of it.

"Serial number?"

"Huh? Oh, TA313gl-37. The first two letters are capitalized." Nigel replied automatically, his optic still fixed on the view beyond the glass panel. Virgil almost reminded him that every serial number was like that, but decided against it.

He inputted the number and a dull whirr resounded though the room as the retrieval system set on one of the pods near the back area where most of the newer androids were kept. After a couple of minutes, a glass pod slid inside of the retrieval bay beside the terminal.

Virgil sent out a command and the pod opened with a hiss, filling his olfactory sensors with the distinct scent of warm metal and plastic. Inside the pod was an android only an inch shorter than Virgil, designed with the image of a delinquent teenager in mind. Its short brown hair even had a bright orange streak at the fringe, partially covering the undoubtedly youthful features and complementing the dark jeans and tee and studded bracelets.

As soon as it came into view, Nigel was nearly shaking with child-like glee in his chassis. If he had a face—which he will, soon enough—it would have the widest, brightest grin. He would have hit the ground in his hurry to disengage from the rail, had Virgil not caught him in time.

"Take it easy! It's not going anywhere." Virgil scolded.

"Yeah, yeah, just plug me in already!" Nigel replied.

If it was through sheer excitement or simply because he was a newer model, the testing associate core downloaded itself into the android in barely a minute. His eyes snapped open with a bright orange glow and he nearly tripped on his own feet in his hurry to get out of the pod. Unused to having limbs, Nigel nearly lost his balance as he adapted to his new form.

"Whoa, ok. Thanks for this, Virgil!" He beamed.

"No problem." The maintenance droid nodded once when something occurred to him, "So, um, what do you need your Humanoid Emulation System for, anyways?"

Nigel's expression went blank, any sign of his previous excitement gone in an instant. It was almost startling. His grin returned so abruptly that it looked painful.

"Oh, you know. Testing." He intoned, scuffing his grey sneakers against the carpet. "It's a little hush-hush, so I can't really talk about it much. Her orders. I need to go. I'll see you later!"

That was bizarre, thought Virgil as Nigel grabbed his core from the terminal and sped away, patting the maintenance droid's shoulder on the way out. Everything about that short conversation didn't sit well with him. What kind of tests were so important that not even Nigel could talk to him about it? Nigel, who was so passionate about testing that he couldn't stop talking about it once he got going. Whatever it was, it needed the mobility and functions that the androids could provide and the cores could not. A million possibilities ran through his processors, and none of them were good. But then again, he couldn't recall when Aperture ever produced something good.

Actually, he could think of a few things that Aperture did right. It reminded him that he still needed to contact Arthur. For a follow-up diagnostic, of course. Nothing more than that.

"Oh, who am I kidding..." Virgil sighed and collapsed onto the office chair next to the terminal, ruffling his hair in an attempt to calm himself. No time like the present; Arthur was long overdue for a check-up. As he pulled up his communication program and entered Arthur's serial number, something occurred to him that made him pause.

There weren't supposed to be any test subjects available. Who was Nigel testing?

 

* * *

 

The steady hum of artificial life was muffled by thick concrete, a sure sign that he was beyond Her reach. Nothing but the drip of water and the buzz of the dim overhead lights could be heard, and it was in the silence of Old Aperture that he could finally think clearly. If that was a good thing or not, it still remained to be seen.

He was usually more frugal about the information he provided to anyone. Part of the appeal that people saw in him was the air of mystery after all. He would never reveal anything important during a first meeting, if he did disclose anything at all. Giving someone his serial number barely half an hour into meeting them was the most careless thing he'd done in a long time.

With what he was getting himself into, Arthur could hardly afford to be careless. Not after all he had worked for to get this far.

A near-silent beep from his communicator drew him out of his thoughts. Or rather, it startled him out of them. Being on the run had made him so much jumpier, and he didn't know if that benefited him at all. It was so unlike him too. Taking a look at the output source put him at ease, or at least as at ease as he could ever be in his circumstances. He opened his connection, making sure to only link his audio output. There was still no telling if he could trust Virgil with any more information. There was a moment of silence between the connection, so he took it upon himself to break it.

"Hello, Virgil."

 _"Hey...Arty,"_ A few stifled curses made its way through, though it only lasted for a few seconds before he gathered himself, _"A-Are you busy?"_

"Mm, depends. Why are you asking?" He chuckled inwardly at the nickname and took care to not let it go through the connection. No need to embarrass the core any further.

_"Just a routine check-up. You were fine last time I checked, but I want to see if I can do something about that encrypted data."_

"Hm. Well, I'm in the middle of something right now." The disappointment was almost palpable and he couldn't help the small laugh that was sent towards Virgil, "But I should be done soon. I'll be at the repair wing in about...an hour?"

_"Ahem, yes, that—that's fine."_

"Wonderful. It's a date." He cut off the connection in time to catch the start of a choking noise.

Arthur tilted his optic out and let out a sigh. It didn't help at all on account of having no respiratory system, but it made him feel a little better. Well, he had an hour to finish the job. Time might be a little tight, but he had done this many times before and he was no stranger to the challenge.

"Who...who were you talking to?" Asked a ragged voice from behind him, laced with suspicion and fatigue. Arthur turned in his rail and raised an eye plate in lieu of a comforting smile, which seemed to work surprisingly well. The man relaxed visibly, toying with his red-stained orange jumpsuit.

"Just a friend. Nobody you need to worry your pretty little head about," He lied smoothly, his optic scanning over the man's hunched form, "How's your leg?"

He looked down and placed a bit of weight on his injured leg. He winced, but stayed upright anyways. An improvement, to say the least. A week ago, the poor thing could barely even stand, "It's...better."

"Good. We should get going, then." And with that, he continued on his path with the test subject limping not far behind. With any luck, this one would survive long enough to see the sun again.


	4. Questions

Arthur was a construct that prided himself with always being on top of everything. His natural levelheadedness and quick thinking as an affection core allowed him to keep the subjects and employees happy and calm, which allowed them to work and test more efficiently. He was the mechanical epitome of a morale boost.

Or at least, that what he was _supposed_ to be. It was like a hard kick in the head when he failed at fulfilling the one thing he was programmed to do.

So there he was, taking his sweet time heading towards the repair wing with half an hour to spare. Perhaps it was because he overestimated his abilities as a guide, or simply because he had overestimated a human's ability to travel quickly with an injury. Arthur didn't even notice until five minutes after he collapsed that he wasn't leading anyone anymore. Retracing his path led him to the test subject's crumpled body, unmoving except for the shallow rise and fall of his quickly dwindling breathing. No amount of coaxing and encouragement could ever revive a dying man.

He sighed and shook his optic to clear his thoughts. There was nothing he could do about that anymore. But still, a part of him went over exactly what he could have done. He could have given himself more time so that he didn't need to hurry; there could have been a point where he could have let the man rest—he didn't even get to ask for a name—until he was able to travel at that speed. Arthur always got like this everything he failed to save another human and he cursed whoever decided it was a good idea to give an AI the ability to feel guilt.

The entrance to Virgil's main workshop came into view and Arthur forced the thoughts deep into his memory banks, even heavily encrypting it for good measure. The guilt dulled down several notches and let him shift back to his usual self. He checked his internal clock; he was about twenty minutes early. Hopefully, Virgil wasn't in the middle of another appointment.

"Virgil," He called out, peering through the frosted glass. Strange, it didn't look like anyone was even in the room. His sensors didn't even pick up any activity, "Virgil?"

Arthur's optic plates narrowed minutely as he examined the management rail. There was a gap to make space for it running through the door, probably to make the workshop more accessible to cores. Experimentally, he nudged his hull against the door and found that it could be easily swung open. He still paused in thought. Would Virgil mind if he waited inside without him to supervise? Arthur barely knew anything about the maintenance core, so he didn't know if he was the anal retentive type. He seemed antsy enough to be, but Arthur tried not to be quick to judge.

He swivelled towards the deactivated security camera mounted on the wall with quite a bit of suspicion. The red light wasn't on, but who knows if She could still see through them. He wouldn't put it past Her to be able to do such a thing. For all he knew, She could be staring right back at him. The thought was enough to send an unconscious shudder through his hull. Without another moment of hesitation, he pushed the doors open and went inside. He would have to forgive him later.

The distinct lack of visible cameras immediately put Arthur at ease. In a lot of ways, the repair wing was like the mechanical equivalent of a medical bay. Oddly enough, it even had the same level of patient confidentiality that a human medical bay would have. If there was any place where Arthur could fully let his guard down, it would be Virgil's workshop.

He felt his cooling system go down a notch as he relaxed, no longer overworking his other systems. The constant stream of energy from being connected to the management rail prevented him from being tired, but constantly watching his own back wore on his processors like he couldn't believe. It was because of that weariness that he failed to notice the object on one of the work tables when he first went in.

A flower-patterned core laid on its side with its optic plates shut, signalling its deactivation. Even when a core goes into sleep mode, there were still internal systems that should be running to keep the core semi-active. There should have been some noise coming from it, especially apparent on an older model like Virgil.

It was completely silent.

Arthur's optic contracted in shock as he glided over to take a closer look, hoping that his suspicions were incorrect. But according to his sensors, the core wasn't even warm. Again, he felt his cooling systems working overtime as he tried to figure out what could have happened. Did he get into an accident since the last time they talked? Has his systems finally malfunctioned from wear and tear? Was he getting replaced by a newer model and—

"Arthur?"

He jerked so suddenly that he felt something snap in his machinery, but he ignored the alert messages flashing at the edge of his visual input to turn around. There was a human standing at the doorway of the workshop, unnaturally golden eyes wide with alarm and confusion. He looked like some sort of worker, if the brown jumpsuit and sturdy long fall braces were anything to go by. There was a long moment of silence as they both stared at each other. Arthur watched as he shook his head and padded over to the deactivated core on the table, his brace springs squeaking with each step. How he had managed to sneak up on Arthur was a mystery to both of them.

"You're early," There wasn't a hint of malice in the glaringly familiar voice, just curiosity and maybe a bit of nerves. Arthur took a while to connect the dots, but as the human picked up the core something finally clicked.

"... Virgil?" His voice was quiet, though he wasn't sure if it was from the unknown internal damage or from his own caution. When the other responded to the name and looked up questioningly, Arthur got a good look at his eyes. They even had the same pattern as Virgil's optic.

"Yes?" He looked at Arthur in confusion before it shifted to realization. The man claiming to be Virgil laughed softly, "Oh! You probably don't recognize me because of this body. I promise, I'm really Virgil."

"You're human."

The statement seemed to catch him off guard, but his expression doesn't change from its well-mannered confusion. Virgil opened his mouth to answer when Arthur's hull twitched with a spark, nearly drowned out by his startled yell.

"Oh, geez, um..." Virgil's hands hovered cautiously over him, switching fully into mother hen mode. He immediately set on disconnecting his pain receptors, "I'll answer any question you might have, just let me get you fixed."

 

* * *

 

 

As Virgil fretted over Arthur's repairs, he had some time to process the information given to him. He felt a bit foolish for thinking that Virgil had somehow become a human, but in his defence the android body was extremely realistic. 

"So, the androids—"

"Aperture Science Humanoid Emulation Systems." Virgil corrected automatically, peering into the open port at Arthur's side. It felt strangely invasive looking inside him, especially when the affection core insisted that he stayed awake to ask questions. His fingers wound through the pistons with nothing but clinical scrutiny, but Arthur couldn't help the shudder that ran through him. Virgil pulled back apologetically and set on to disable all of his sensation simulation protocols, "Sorry. Try to keep still."

"Of course," Arthur tried to stay as immobile as possible, though he was minutely aware of the android messing with his internal mechanisms. As much as he trusted that Virgil wouldn't do anything dangerous to him, he found himself still feeling nervous. "Surely you're not the only one who has one?"

Virgil looked up from replacing the detached gyroscope. A single eyebrow raised curiously, a confused smile pulling at the edges of his mouth.

"No? You could see that just by going through the hallway," Arthur almost mentioned that he hadn't been in the main halls in years, but he decided against it. The mount snapped back into place and Virgil peered inside to make sure everything else was in order, "It's all kept in a vault. Not everyone is allowed to use theirs, so the distribution is controlled. Most of the cores aren't allowed theirs unless they have permission to use it."

Arthur hummed, stuttering momentarily when Virgil accidentally nudged against his vocal processors. The maintenance droid sputtered another quick apology before continuing his examination. Arthur was a much newer model than what Virgil would usually work on. The more recent versions were supposed to be sturdier, so he had no clue why the gyroscope detached so easily. Maybe he put something out of place the first time around.

The moment his hand retreated from inside him, Arthur swivelled around experimentally and flexed his handlebars in lieu of a stretch. "Hm, that's better. Excellent work as always, gorgeous."

"Er, just doing my job, Arthur," Virgil huffed out a laugh, feeling his cooling system kick up at the praise. He adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat, "Now that that's done, I need to check on your programming. It'll be over before you know it."

Virgil squinted and a message popped up in Arthur's vision.

_Allow administrator access?_

_> Yes.  
> No._

He contemplated the message for a moment as Virgil waited patiently for a response, a hint of confusion gracing his features. Arthur didn't recall seeing it before and judging by Virgil's expression, neither had he. He must have tripped some security measures after ejecting Virgil from his system the first time.

Shaking his optic, Arthur agreed and the message was replaced by the odd sensation of being attached to another system. Invasive, yet not at all unpleasant. He didn't know if it was a programmed reaction to make maintenance easier or not, but it was a welcome distraction either way.

"There's a bit _more_ encrypted data than before," Virgil commented, an edge of worry creeping into his voice while his brow pinched together, "Are you absolutely sure you feel okay?"

"I am." He squirmed at the burning scrutiny. Of course he was fine; he was the one who encrypted his own data. He made sure that none of it was anything that would affect his performance.

"I don't know how that could be." Virgil muttered. His head tilted to the side on its own accord as he picked through the mess. Even just looking at it made his processors feel all weird. He couldn't imagine how it must be like for him, but at least the possible corruption must have dulled whatever he should have been feeling. "I'm gonna try to decrypt some of it, so just try to relax."

To Arthur's relief, Virgil started out on the largest part in the main personality part of his programming. He had given away his identity the moment he gave away his serial number, so he didn't see the point of hiding it anymore. Slowly but surely, Virgil managed to clear out the lines of decoy data and recompile whatever was left. By the end of it, Virgil was ignoring the flashing battery icon in the corner of his vision in favour of finishing everything up.

"Okay," The connection was severed and Virgil stepped back, the heel of his hand rubbing at his right optic. He looked exhausted, but that was to be expected from the shoddy battery life that came with the older ASHES models. He made a mental note to get it upgraded soon, "Run 'Basic_Check.exe'"

Almost immediately, Arthur went still and his voice lost all of its warmth, taking on a more mechanical tone.

"Personality Sphere AC186cl-02 or the 'Affection Core'. Main function: increase of employee morale. Secondary function: not found." Arthur recited, completely monotone. Virgil nodded his head; everything lined up. He was about to speak up when Arthur kept going, "Mapping source: Employee 2786, Arthur En Ciel. Additional data: not found."

A muted beep signalled the end of the test and Arthur blinked, looking a bit disoriented. When his vision refocused, Virgil's mouth was pulled back in an unreadable frown. He had never gotten that information from the other cores, and he had no idea what it meant or even what to do with it. It felt like he should know what that meant, but the relevance escaped him, no matter how much he tried to recall where he heard the term before.

"Everything's in working order," Virgil murmured as he went on to detach his charge from the repair stand. His voice was low with fatigue and distraction, and Arthur couldn't help but worry about exactly what he said during his check. Despite it, Virgil still managed a small smile, "There's no more need for another check-up unless you get damaged again, so you're free to go."

"Can I still visit from time to time?" Arthur blurted out, surprising both himself and the android holding him.

His cooling system kicked up a notch, but he tried his best to not let it show. Virgil cleared his throat and reattached Arthur to the management rail before responding.

"Well, erm. Nothing's stopping you from doing that," He laughed nervously and ran a hand through his hair, "Um. Yes. I would really like that. Feel free to visit any time."

Arthur's optic plates lifted in a smile, "Perfect. I hope to see you soon, then."

As Arthur rolled out of his workshop and into the maintenance areas, Virgil plopped down next to the generator and plugged himself in. The mapping source never popped up for anyone else other than Arthur, and he still couldn't recall where he had heard that term before. But the check had mentioned a name: Arthur En Ciel. That obviously referred to the affection core, but constructs didn't have surnames. _Humans_ had surnames, but cores didn't need them.

Parts of the puzzle clicked together and the image being produced wasn't exactly a pleasant one. It felt like he was a few pieces away from figuring out what it all meant, but all the crucial ones were out of his reach. Like a wall was blocking his way.

Before he could think further into it, a shrill beep yanked him from his memory banks. He rubbed the fatigue from his optics and pulled up his communication program.

**> Report to the main chamber.**

 

* * *

 

The feed cut off just as the core disappeared into the maintenance area and the monitor retreated back into the walls.

GLaDOS swung around almost languidly to face the other monitor where a live feed of a test chamber was being broadcasted. The current test subject was doing much better than the previous ones, much to Her delight. He was no Chell, but anyone that didn't give up at the first sign of mortal peril was the most She could ask for with this batch. If all went well, he could possibly be stored away for future use.

She watched the subject disappear into the lift and switched the camera input to the next test chamber. It wasn't one of the more difficult ones, so there shouldn't be any issue with solving it. The system stated that the lift was open, but the subject took exactly 36.582 seconds to enter the main track and begin testing. His movements were a bit more sluggish than usual and he finished with three new scorch marks on his person.

" _Congratulations on completing the test,_ " Boomed Her voice from the intercom, " _Your performance has been lacking, Robert Knoll. But don't worry. The increased epinephrine vapour dosage should put a pep in your step. Let me know if you start to experience numbness, loss of balance, or seizures. That means you've had too much epinephrine._ "

Robert only responded with a blank stare before continuing on to the next test chamber, all but dragging his feet along. Again, the camera shifted. This time, a full minute passed before he exited the lift and GLaDOS noticed the red-rimmed eyes and the remnants of tears streaking down his face.

Well, that explained the declining performance quality.

She pulled up another monitor and connected the feed to testing track Nigel-1. The test subject seemed to be faring much better than Her current charge. Gel splattered over one of the platforms and the subject stepped off without much hesitation, sending her flying towards the exit platform where the testing associate core was leaning beside the fizzler. As soon as she landed, Nigel's bored disposition immediately shifted to excitement as he bounded over and high-fived his test subject.

"Nicely done! You did even better than last time," He gushed, grinning wide with so much glee that the subject couldn't help but mirror his enthusiasm, "Only a few more chambers and you'll get that Citranium I promised you."

The subject's shoulders shook slightly with silent laughter and she reached up to ruffle Nigel's hair, turning it into a mess of brown and orange locks. She said something the microphones didn't pick up that got Nigel turning colours.

"Wh—no, I'm not!" He hurriedly smoothed down his hair, "Anyways, you should be testing right now. Chop chop, we're on a tight schedule!"

She rolled her eyes and shoved the paint gun in her apron before passing through the fizzler. Nigel huffed and shot the camera an apologetic, albeit embarrassed look before following behind the test subject. GLaDOS switched to the next test chamber and found her already in the middle of solving the test, egged on by Nigel's overenthusiastic encouragement.

She found Herself watching the track for longer than usual; the test subject was strangely energized through the entirety of the tests, despite the fact that Nigel-1 wasn't outfitted with any epinephrine vapour vents. After every solved room, Nigel would give a few praises then she would continue testing with renewed vigour.

Positive reinforcement _was_ an effective boost, now that She thought about it. The test subjects who came out of suspension tended to be disoriented by the time skip between their waking states, and many were desperate for companionship once they connected the dots between their long sleep and the state of their loved ones. It was in that desperation that the subjects could even bond with something non-sentient like a companion cube, but it was getting more apparent that it wasn't even close to being enough. Most people preferred their company to not be a useless block of pure deadweight.

Speaking of which, She hadn't checked on Her own test subject in a while. Hopefully, the extra kick from the epinephrine was enough to get him moving faster. She swivelled back to face the other monitor and examined the test chamber.

It was empty.

There was no way he could have escaped. She flipped between cameras and looked at the room from all angles, but the telltale orange jumpsuit was nowhere to be found. As She connected to the last camera, a soft blue glow caught her attention and She zoomed in. The portal device laid beside a pair of long fall boots, all discarded at the edge of the acid pit.

Oh.

GLaDOS switched off the monitors and tucked them away behind the wall panels as She swung idly in the middle of Her chamber, processors humming silently as She thought. Truthfully, She had been burning through quite a lot of test subjects. And while humans were theoretically a renewable resource, She couldn't afford to wait. As inconvenient as they were were—and as much as She hated to admit it—human test subjects were a necessity. Robots could be programmed to test very easily, but that was where the problem was. Programming was predictable. Do this when that happens, else do this instead. She might as well have been holding manipulation limbs with the robots, for all the good that it does in advancing Science.

But humans were complicated in the best ways. They had logic and emotions to determine their actions, _true_ logic and emotions. No amount of advanced programming could completely emulate the actions and thoughts of a human being from scratch. The more human-like constructs of Aperture were always the ones who had a living mapping source. And even they lost their human characteristics the moment they were transferred over digitally.

The problem still remained. If She didn't reduce the mortality rate, She would run out of test subjects to experiment with before anything can really progress.

With an unconscious prompt, Her memory bank pulled up footage from the repair wing.

_"Okay. Run 'Basic_Check.exe'"_

_"Personality Sphere AC186cl-02 or the 'Affection Core'. Main function: increase of employee morale. Secondary function: not found. Mapping source: Employee 2786, Arthur En Ciel."_

Perhaps She _did_ have a use for that obsolete piece of equipment after all. 


	5. Answers

He couldn't pace too far with the charger attached to his neck, Virgil realized. But that didn't stop him from doing so anyways. There was a spark of protest every time he reached the end of the cord and he squashed down the urge to rip it off entirely. Instead, he turned on his heel springs and paced in another direction, repeating once he reached the end of his lead in that direction.

A solid knot of dread seemed to coil inside of Virgil's chest as he read over the message again, the slight tingle of electricity in the back of his neck momentarily forgotten. He had done an excellent job at keeping a low profile thus far; what on earth could She want from him?

"She probably has more testing tracks f-for me to fix. Yeah, that's it," His voice modulator skipped and he took a moment to calm himself. A part of him knows that he would never get called to the main chamber for something as menial as a new assignment; She was too busy for that. He had never caused enough trouble to warrant a personal meeting with GLaDOS, but he still ran through his previous recorded data to make sure.

The only thing that wasn't part of his set schedule was repairing Nigel's testing track, and even that was still contributing to the eventual restoration of the facility. Could he get in trouble for fixing something out of schedule? It didn't make sense, but he had never personally bore witness to what She was like.

No matter the reason, he knew that it was a bad idea to keep Her waiting. Breathing out a cloud of warm air, he called down the attachment module to his management rail and clicked himself into place. He knew that he did nothing wrong, but something about the whole situation made him feel guilty nonetheless. With the power source from the management rail, there was no shortage of energy stopping him from thinking the entire way to Her chamber. Minutes passed and the knot seemed to tighten until he felt whatever the robotic equivalent of nausea was. He didn't even know that was physically possible for him.

As he arrived at the entrance, Virgil detached from the rail and walked the rest of the way inside. Maybe 'stumbled' would have been a more accurate descriptor as he nearly tripped over his shaking legs. He found himself cursing whoever thought it best to give an AI the ability to feel mortal panic for the second time.

"I did nothing wrong. Everything is fine," He repeated under his breath to ease the borderline overheat of his processors. "I didn't do anything wrong."

" _Oh, I wouldn't say that._ "

She was massive. He wasn't the tallest android in any aspect, and it was much more obvious as even the main core part of Her body was much, _much_ larger than him. The golden light of Her optic swept over him, blank yet calculating in the worst ways. It was like She could see every little flaw in his design and programming. Who knows, maybe that was exactly what She was doing. What seemed like an eternity passed before the silence was broken by Her mechanical intone.

" _You don't know why you're here._ "

It took Virgil a moment to get his vocal processors working again, "N-No, I don't, ma'am." He added the last formality as an afterthought.

" _Hm. Well, feel free to relax. If you were in trouble, you wouldn't still be standing here._ "

There was something off about the calming, disarming way that had the exact opposite effect on him. Still, he forced himself to let the tension drain out of his frame and relax, or at least _appear_ to be more relaxed. She seemed satisfied with it, as She turned Her back to the android and called on the monitors. Static filled the screens for a few seconds as the screens loaded up the security footage, dated at the bottom right from nearly a year and a half ago.

Virgil knew exactly what was on-screen, even as the gold of his optics shrunk to the point that his vision went unfocused. If GLaDOS noticed his reaction, She gave no indication and kept Her gaze directed towards the screens, watching on as if She hadn't seen the footage before. Virgil could hardly do the same.

The sound of turret gunfire and his frantic orders towards Mel reverberated through the chamber and for a moment, he was thrown back to that time not so long ago. He couldn't go into AEGIS' server room with Mel, so he hung outside connected to the surveillance system with nothing to offer but instructions and words of encouragement. The view on the screens were identical to his view as the Olympian test subject flung herself around the chamber, narrowly avoiding the bullets as they ripped through the machinery controlling the security system.

The footage continued to play even as Mel crawled into AEGIS and into the control panel. Their one-sided conversation played through the speakers with eerie clarity.

" _W-Wait, Mel. Before shutting this thing down completely, remember how there was a third target it was trying to take out?_ " Virgil found himself silently mouthing along to the words, his systems still reeling from the shock, " _Well, we're not three...unless you can tell me otherwise._ "

What was She trying to do? He shifted his attention to Her, but She remained in the same immobile position since the footage started rolling.

" _Try to see what you can do. Type, um, 'ping'. Underscore. 'Target'. Underscore. 'List'._ "

There was a click of the enter key. The silence seemed thicker and more suffocating the second time around.

" _...A-Am I reading this right? W-Was this thing..trying to destroy Her? It was targeting GLaDOS?"_ Silence _. "Mel...what have we done?_ "

The feed cut off and the screens were filled with static.

Virgil had a sneaking suspicion as to why this was being brought up. He had been caught. Letting test subjects on contract out of the facility was prohibited and for all intents and purposes, Mel had never submitted an official resignation. He wasn't completely out of the loop; he knew that a test subject as tenacious as Mel would have been a great asset to advancing Science. Those subjects tended to perform better and last longer, after all.

" _I'll tell you exactly what you have done._ "

She turned away from the monitors and tilted the core of Her massive body in a way that was reminiscent of a head being cocked. Virgil instinctively stepped away as She drew the slightest bit closer and his back hit a raised floor panel like a wall. Nowhere to run. He felt his cooling systems straining to function.

" _You saved Science._ "

The sudden change in atmosphere was almost jarring. The panel behind him snapped back to its place in the ground and he ended up tumbling down with it. He felt even smaller on the ground. When he gathered the nerve to look up, he swore that She looked almost amused.

" _I told you. If you were in trouble, you wouldn't still be standing here._ " Her optic roved over Virgil's sprawled form, " _...Poor choice of words, but my point still stands. If you hadn't stopped that security system from flooding the facility, none of us would be here in this exact moment. No one would be around to test. You have prevented a horrible, science-less future."_

"O-Oh, um..." He ran a hand through his hair, eyes darting around. He still has no idea why this was being brought up, "You're w-welcome?"

" _Of course. After all, it looks like you have the facility's best interests in mind. Right?_ "

Virgil didn't like Her tone at all. It was like She was trying to lead him into a trap. Even so, he knew better than to refuse to answer. "Y-Yes, I do."

" _Good_." GLaDOS all but purred, " _Which is exactly why you're who I need for this._ "

Virgil's attention went back to the screens. A testing track was broadcasting in real time as one of the testing droids sprinted past a spiked plate gauntlet and into a row of turrets. But as the turrets fired and red splattered against the white tile, Virgil swore his heart would have stopped if he had one.

That was definitely _not_ a testing droid.

"We're...t-testing on _humans_ again?!" His voice went shrill as soon as he found it again.

GLaDOS spared a glance that was almost confused, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

" _I was under the impression that you knew already. Why else would you have needed to fix so many test chambers? Why else would Nigel have to use his Humanoid Emulation System? Really, Maintenance, I expected much more from you._ "

Patronizing tone aside, Virgil nearly kicked himself for his own naivety and blindness. In hindsight, he should have been able to piece it together without Her spelling it out for him. He just never payed any mind to the signs, since he was so preoccupied with Arthur taking up most of his processing power.

The video cut off and he was confused to see the familiar soot-stained walls of his own repair wing. More so when he realized that, as tilted and low-quality the video was, it looked like it was taken from his own view.

" _Okay. Run 'Basic_Check.exe'_ "

" _Personality Sphere AC186cl-02 or the 'Affection Core'. Main function: increase of employee morale. Secondary function: not found. Mapping source: Employee 2786, Arthur En Ciel._ "

 

There weren't supposed to be any functioning surveillance cameras in the repair wing. He had made sure that the ones in his workshop weren't even in one piece. It was meant to be a safe space for the other bots. A break from Her constant scrutiny.

" _You must know how much humans crave companionship. After all, you made friends with one of them._ " GLaDOS' voice barely cut through his own racing thoughts, " _I'll be honest, I was made for running the facility and testing. With all of the data stored inside of me, there is hardly any space for human emotion._ "

The footage was frozen on a clear view of Arthur's multicoloured optic as he rested on the repair stand. He had no idea of the breach in confidentiality, nor of the unintentional lie that Virgil had told. Guilt joined the dread that pulled on his circuits like a thread.

" _Human test subjects are hardly a renewable resource. I'm bound to run out after the human vault runs dry,_ " She leaned down until She was barely a foot away from his trembling frame, " _And when that happens, well...I guess I would need to get them from another source. Who knows, maybe I can find that test subject you let go._ "

"No!" It slipped out before he could stop himself. He clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide. Think. There must be some way out of this. Virgil couldn't let Her drag Mel back into Aperture. After all they've been through, there was no way that he would be able to help her escape again. Doing it with AEGIS active was hard enough; he shuddered to think about how it would be like escaping with Her active. Under Her piercing gold stare, Virgil frantically wracked his processors, "I-I mean, wouldn't that...use up too many resources?"

" _Everything uses up resources, Maintenance. Which is why I need you to do something for me,_ " Straight to the point now. Evidently, Her patience had run thinner than their supply of test subjects, " _Bring that Affection Core to me. Do whatever it takes. Deactivate him if you need to. Or better yet, convince him that you're his friend and just lead him here yourself. That seems to work well._ "

Something about the tone told Virgil that She knew that from personal experience. He didn't have long to dwell on that before GLaDOS continued speaking.

" _Of course, if you somehow can't do it, I heard the surface is especially fruitful this time of year._ "

His fists clenched. There was no way this could end well, no matter what he chose to do. Instead, he wasn't going to do either of Her options. He was going to buy time.

"I will see what I can do, ma'am," Virgil responded weakly, trying to keep the waver out of his voice.

" _Good_ ," She turned back to the monitors, where the footage from his repair wing was replaced with feeds from the test chambers, " _Get going, then._ "

Virgil took that as the opportunity to get as far away from the main chamber as possible. If he had payed any attention to where he was going, he would have noticed Arthur rolling out of sight as he rushed past.

 

* * *

 

It took a few minutes of feeling around before Virgil came across the dime-sized bug latched onto the shoulder of his jumpsuit. In a brief moment of impulsiveness, he hurled it at the tiled floor and relished the crunch it made as it splintered into a million pieces. His boot crashed down on the pieces for good measure. He hated losing control, but he had to admit that it felt a little satisfying.

The satisfaction was short-lived as the gravity of the situation fully settled. He hadn't agreed to GLaDOS' demands per se, but his wording had implied that he was going to provide Her with something. He had unknowingly dug a hole for himself, and god forbid anyone heard that exchange between them.

The other cores trusted him to be a neutral party, so they felt safe around him inside of his repair wing. There weren't even supposed to be any cameras in the area, save for that one time Fact was filming that documentary. Even then, it took a lot of coaxing for him to agree on that.

No, Virgil wasn't going to let that change anything. He was going to keep both Mel and Arthur out of this. He would find a way. He always did.

As his plan developed and stewed in his processors, he pulled up the messaging system and typed out a summons as he attached himself to the management rail. He just hoped that he would cooperate with him.

**Arthur,**

**There's a vault in the lower robotics wing. Meet me there ASAP.  
I will explain later.**

**Virgil**

 

* * *

 

 

Arthur didn't know where he was going. But after what he saw in the main chamber, he had more pressing matters to think about other than his whereabouts.

He was a fool to think that anyone could be trusted. There was no room for that, especially when he was on the run, but the fact that it came from _Virgil_ of all constructs almost stung. Just as he started coming around, _Virgil_ does _that_! What's even worse is that he had seriously contemplated about telling him about his situation. He heard Virgil's voice when he came across the woman a long while ago, guiding her through the test chambers. Arthur thought that maybe he would understand what he was doing, even help in letting the fallen subjects out of Aperture.

But he had been wrong on so many accounts.

The notifying chirp from within his system jerked him out his own stewing and he paused to see a little envelope-shaped icon in the edge of his vision. He knew exactly who it was and what the note was about, but he opened the message anyways.

Part of him wanted to discard the message and retreat to the most remote parts of Aperture, to just keep looking for escapees and help them escape. Although he wasn't too successful thus far, at least he was as far away from Her control as possible. He had lost count of the number of times he'd cursed the limitations of his core body.

He looked at the message again. The vault in the robotics wig. Why did that place sound so familiar?

" _It's all kept in a vault. Not everyone is allowed to use theirs, so the distribution is controlled. Most of the cores aren't allowed theirs unless they have permission to use it._ "

Of course. The ASHES vault. She must need him to be in a more humanoid state to fulfill his function. Arthur might have been able to keep the humans alive if he went with Virgil, but he was just subjecting them to more testing by doing that. He wasn't going to let that happen. Not again.

The message disappeared from his view as he made his way toward the vault. He wasn't going to cooperate with the whims of this hell hole of a facility anymore. But it would be in his best interest to play along for now.

 

* * *

 

 

When Arthur arrived in the robotics wing, he found the vault door open and Virgil with his hands planted firmly against the control panel. The maintenance droid turned around as soon as the steady whirr of his movements were within earshot.

"Arthur!" He bound over to the other construct, a relieved smile crinkling the edges of his tired eyes. Virgil took the lack of response as confusion and continued on without missing a beat, "Okay, I know this place is a little overwhelming at first, but we need to get you loaded up in your ASHES before I can explain anything."

Without waiting for a reply, Virgil turned back to the panel and squinted at the screen. Arthur's serial number appeared on the display and the room shook as the retrieval system sped towards the designated pod. As the glass case slid into view, they had a good look at the ASHES deemed suited for a construct of his function.

Most of the newer models were pretty close to being human, but even Virgil's heightened sight failed to see any of the telltale seams or screws that usually gave away their true nature. As expected, the android was quite attractive. It was dressed smartly with a white vest, black dress shirt, and a grey tie pinstriped with rainbow colours matching the shock of brightly coloured hair swept partially over its face. The android was the closest to appearing human that Virgil has ever seen.

It was understandable that for a short moment, Arthur was caught off guard. The light of his optic shrunk as something unpleasant bubbled in his memory banks. Flashes of things he shouldn't have been able to see and feel. Then it all disappeared, wiped away as quickly as it had came.

When his vision returned, he came face-to-optic with Virgil's worried frown. Shaking slightly in his hull, Arthur lifted his handlebar in a smile. "It's all very fascinating, gorgeous. Could you, um..."

"O-Oh, of course," Virgil stood under the core and held his arms out, nearly fumbling as Arthur dropped off the management rail and into his grip. He rushed to plug him into the transfer hub and took a step back as Arthur's plates snapped closed.

As he waited for his programming to transfer over, Virgil plopped himself on the office chair and tapped his fingers against the control panel. He alternated between watching the loading bar crawl across the screen and making sure that no passing core or android accidentally went to close the vault door; the ones who designed the vault made it so that the lock would engage once it was closed, regardless of who could still be inside.

He added fixing the lock mechanism to the ever growing to-do list in his drive with an exhale.

It wasn't for another five minutes before the bar completely filled and the comatose android's eyes snapped open, mouth agape in an unneeded gasp for air unheard through the thick glass. With a personality programming installed into it, Virgil could fully appreciate the craftsmanship that went into building the affection core's body. Every little movement and twitch of his face seemed expertly calculated to be as close to human expression as possible. It was almost mesmerizing to look at.

But it was those movements that told Virgil the added controls and the enclosed space of the pod might have been making Arthur panic. The maintenance droid flinched to full attention and went to disengage the airlock.

The smell of metal and warm plastic filled the air as the pod slid open. Virgil was at Arthur's side in a flash as the newer android nearly fell over, one strong arm supporting his taller yet more lithe form. His eyes were grey in hue and his gaze distant, probably from the shock of the transfer and the finishing calibrations with the new body. Biting his lip, Virgil reached up to detach the wires plugged into the ports on Arthur's neck.

His pain receptors barely processed the sensation of his hand being smacked away, but he still recoiled and lost his grip as Arthur stumbled a few feet away before falling on his behind. Virgil was still reeling from the sudden shock, though it didn't stop him from noting the change in Arthur's demeanour.

"Hey, a-are you alright?" Virgil's accent was a touch more prominent as he crouched down to check on him. Arthur's eyes were more alert and much to his amazement, they started shifting from grey to amber. His gaze focused on the smaller android's face, creased with worry and caution, "Arthur, can you answer me?"

His mouth opened and closed a few times as his system calibrated with the vocal processors and with a simulated inhale, he finally found his voice.

"Just a little overwhelmed," Came the familiar, curt timbre.

Relief rushed through Virgil's face as he stood at full height and held out his hand to help the other android from the floor. Arthur took it a little hesitantly and was nearly thrown off balance again with the sheer strength of his pull.

"That's understandable. I was just like that during my first transfer," He smiled and attempted a comforting pat on Arthur's shoulder. It was a little awkward given how much taller he was compared to Virgil, but he didn't have much time to dwell on it before he turned on his heel and marched towards the control panel, "So! I was saying earlier that I would explain why you needed to come here..."

The rest of whatever he was saying became a background hum as Arthur remembered why he was there. After trying for so long to evade Her grasp, he was getting sold out. By _Virgil_ , no less. Thrown back into the whims of the facility that he never wanted to be a part of.

Arthur tested the strength of his new legs. Solid, yet delicate. They weren't made to do any heavy work, but they were sturdy enough that he could make a quick getaway if he wanted to.

His eyes shifted to a deep purple as the vault door came into his line of sight. The tap of his footsteps were near silent when he made his way towards it. Virgil still stared at the screen, unaware as he explained something that Arthur's audio sensors can't seem to process as clear words. He hadn't thanked the maintenance droid for his help, but he needed to take his chance while it was still within his grasp.

Hearing movement behind him, Virgil paused and turned around. Arthur was already halfway out the vault before Virgil could completely process what was going on.

"Arthur—!" Golden eyes widened as they met with Arthur's a split second before they disappeared behind the heavy metal door. The chirp of the door lock engaging immediately echoed through the small room.


End file.
